AdAge via Portfolio's Mixed Media blog: I think they called it one of their great covers. That was shocking. I mean, it's a silly, gimicky thing. By the way, it cost a quarter-million dollars, I'm told. No, it was ridic... I was embarrassed by it. I think, to tell you the truth, most people at Hearst were embarrassed by it, because I talked to a lot of editors at Hearst and they were embarrassed by it. But I was embarrassed by it. I was embarrassed that the Esquire name was on it.

No word yet on how the novelty (and $3 more expensive) issue fared on newsstands. But Lois' comments remind us of those by a friend of ours who said of Esquire's October 2008 cover, "You know what looks great? The non-digital cover."